THE PREPS : Mt. SAC Relays : No One Catches Up With Arroyo in 4 x 1,600

If the four distance runners of Corona del Mar, Valencia or Dana Hills high schools are looking for solace after Friday night’s 4 x 1,600-meter relay at Mt. San Antonio College, maybe they ought to remember what forces they were dealing with:

A cold wind, a driving rain and, the strongest force of all, the El Monte Arroyo distance squad.

Jeff Gilkey, Jaime Ortega, Derek Powers and Gerardo Puentes, the core of Arroyo’s 1987 state champion cross-country team, outran all competitors to win the event in 17 minutes 37.70 seconds, a meet record by 1.2 seconds.

Corona del Mar, which set the former record of 17:38.90 last year, finished third in 17:44.08, just behind second-place Walnut (17:42.11).

Dana Hills and Valencia, which at several instances appeared to be in contention, dropped in the final leg and finished fifth (18:09.20) and sixth (18:19.0), respectively.

Corona del Mar’s Eddie Lavelle gave the Sea Kings a strong first leg. Lavelle (4:22.6) held off Gilkey (4:23.3) before passing the baton to Greg Shryock.

But Shryock (4:29.5) couldn’t contain a very strong opening surge by Ortega, who extend Arroyo’s lead by 40 meters.

By the time Corona del Mar’s third runner, Paul Scott (4:37.0), got the baton, the race was for second with Palos Verdes and Walnut. Powers (4:29.7) threw in another strong 100-meter surge, giving Arroyo a 12-second lead on the field.

Though Jim Robbins ran the fastest leg (4:15.1) for Corona del Mar, he couldn’t catch Puentes (4:23.5), nor could he outrun the fast closing kick of Walnut’s Scott Hempel, who ran the fastest leg of the field at 4:12.8, which moved Walnut from fourth to second in a lap’s time.

In the boys’ invitational 3,000 meters, Marina’s Shanon Winkelman finished second in 8:30.2 behind Palos Verdes’ David Scudamore in 8:30.0. Santa Ana Valley’s Jimmy Rodriguez was fourth in 8:37.2, and Laguna Hills’ Steve Frisone was eighth in 8:47.1.

Mission Viejo defeated a tough field in the sprint medley to win in 3:34.11. Jason Holloway led the Diablos in the opening 200 meters, followed by Steve Miller for the second 200. Jeff Jurgyminah ran the 400, then handed off to Greg Lamb for the final 800. Lamb, who got the baton in second place, sped by Palos Verdes’ David Manfredi in the final 100 meters for the victory. Mater Dei was fourth in 3:41.54.

In the 4 x 800-meter relay, Edison held off all challengers to win in 8:01.9. Mater Dei was fifth in 8:14.35.